I had a lot of interesting and positive comments last weekend concerning my comments about Roller coasters, Disney and applying them to Torah. I seem to do things a little differently than others, and definitely off the beaten path. I’ve been thinking about what I do differently and how it shapes not only what I write here but what keeps me writing when I could be doing so many other things.
This week, we have the setup and the delivery not of the Mitzvot, but the identity statement of He who will Give the mitzvot to
1. And God spoke all these words, saying, 2. I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the
Past this point the commandments we have more concrete ideas: Shabbat can be explained the way Philo of Alexandria explained it. A person rested can be more productive the other six days. The rest is simple ethics. Thus we have three parts of Decalogue. We have the exclusive relationship with God, the witnessing of God’s creation on the day of rest, and the rules to be civil to one another. Yet all of them are about the first part, the relationship with God. We do these things to be in relationship with God. How we define and perceive this relationship differs among individuals and communities.
I recently was at an Orthodox home for Erev Shabbos. For the traditional D’var Torah at the dinner table, halakah for Shabbat was recited out of a very thick book of halakic rulings. Based on the rules derived from the Mishnah’s prohibition against harvesting during Shabbat came a ruling of not using a Hammock, for fear of knocking anything off the tree, and thus unintentionally harvesting. I actually understand the rabbinic thinking here, and do appreciate it. So I took the next step and asked another question: What if the tree is dead? With a little searching on our host’s part he found out that at least for hammocks it didn’t matter if the tree was alive or dead, and though the derivation wasn’t clear, it was probably based on dead produce or branches falling off the tree. Along the way, we found out that you can sit on a dead tree stump but not a live one, though some authorities believe you can only do that in summer and not winter when you can tell the difference between a live one and dead one.
Several of the guests who were not very religious at the table later mentioned to me they didn’t get such hairsplitting. Nor did they understand the seemingly contradictory nature of first restricting then finding loopholes to that restriction. But for me it makes sense if you make certain assumptions. The most vital of those assumptions is the nature of the relationship between God and
On the other hand there is a pattern I’ve seen in my experience in Liberal Judaism. During many discussions I’ve had in Reform settings, the same questions keep coming back. What is the nature of divine revelation, or does it even really exist? Why do bad thing happen to good people? Even though those are the hard philosophical questions; the “hard portions” to talk about are those which are all halakic. Stories are good stuff, Halakhah is avoided in discussion. Theology or in Hebrew Aggadah dominates discussions and belief. This has been true since the inception of the Reform movement, and while traditional elements are bringing back some things, such as a more traditional prayer service as exemplified by the new siddur Mishkan Tefilah, the core of this way of relationship is discussing the nature of the relationship. It is like two people dating who always go out on dates and spend the entire time talking about what their relationship is, and whether it really exists. They never bother to get around to holding hands, kissing or really enjoying the company of their love.
Then there is the third kind of relationship what I would call the Everyday Torah. Many people, mainly mystics, have seen it before. Yet, I believe it is far more approachable than some esoteric mysticism. My first exposure to it was not Jewish but as a core value of Taoism. It is fundamental to Lurianic Kabbalah. The Baal Shem Tov certainly knew of it and based much of what he did on it. Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Yiddish poetry sings of it. Probably of all movements the Renewal movement has the most consistent elements of this type of relationship. But maybe it is King David who sings of it most succinctly:
The earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it
The world and those who dwell in it
For he has founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the rivers. [Psalm 24:1-2]
In this view there is a bit of holiness in everything, a bit of the divine in every part of our reality. The late Carl Sagan liked to talk that “we are made of Star stuff.” In this relationship, There is only God-Stuff, and everything is made of God stuff. God is everything and then some. Because the human mind needs to divide things to understand them, the “then some” part we call God, “the divine,” or the “worlds above.” The concrete part we can sense call “this world”, or “the worlds below.” We are in relationship with everything as we are in the relationship with the divine. One bittersweet way of looking at such a relationship I can find in my apartment, reminders of my late grandfathers (may their memory be for a blessing) On my desk, there are some letter openers and a big paperweight paperclip that used to sit on my Grandfather’s desk from as early as I can remember. Not far away is the talit katan and siddur of my other grandfather. In seeing those objects I remember my grandfathers and I get back into relationship with them. There is a tie I still have that I was given by an ex-girlfriend on Sweetest Day. I remember her every time I wear it. This often is the relationship we have with the Divine, as something that is not here, as transcendent, but there are reminders in our lives that if we see them we remember. The whole point of tzitzit is exactly that, to remember [Numbers 15:39]. Yet I believe not only in objects of holiness like tzitzit or an Eternal Light do this. Anything, a sign on a passing truck, a song on the radio, a bit of overheard conversation, we can remember God this if we only we make the effort.
Of course my ex-girlfriend is not the tie, and my grandfather is not a paperclip paperweight. To treat my tie like a girlfriend, buy it flowers, treat it to chocolate on Valentines Day, or even sleep with it would be outright insane. To say these objects are the person is wrong. That is idolatry, and that is the danger of misunderstanding this relationship, something I have seen on occasion. This is so much the case, God after saying “I am” in the Decalogue states not to get into this crazy thinking.
You shall not make for you any engraved image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5. You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
This is the relationship with the transcendent God. Yet Torah of the Everyday, like many mystic systems has no problems with paradox. God is both imminent and transcendent. God’s imminence means that every thing and action emanates God’s holiness out – it is not just reminder, but a conduit of the holy. It is the still small voice Elijah heard at Sinai [I K 19:12], a tiny spark in the sunshine, a small vibration. The Noise, vibrations and light of our secular world, tends to mask the holy world right there in front of us. Every action and every object is Torah and Midrash in this view, everything Divine Revelation and Miracle. They are not the thunder and fire of Sinai. Our experience is more like Elijah’s experience at Sinai, God was not in the fire. Instead God-expreience is very small or taken for granted but the experience is alwys there. We just have to get used to looking for it, and even then it’s difficult at times unless we make it habit. I’ve learned to see some of these, seeing roller coasters as Midrash or Harley-Davidson riders as a commentary on how to treat Torah. I often rely on such experience in writing this column, and in my view of holiness in general.
I have talked about Everyday Torah this week very inadequately falling back into that theology mode for some thing I usually do wordlessly. This is not about words but perceptions of the world around us, of perceiving what is really there. To help us in this, God mandated on Sinai a weekly practice day:
8. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days shall you labor, and do all your work;
10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger that is within your gates; 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.
Shabbat is there not only to rest our bodies but for us to witness creation, to see the Divine in the mundane. It’s the weekly exercise in getting the Torah of the Everyday into our everyday lives, when it is so hard to practice such things the other six days.
I believe there is not one right relationship to God of these three, nor is there one right blend. Since I’m taking a painting class right now I’d compare it to painting with the three primary colors, blue, red, and yellow. We can use them pure in places or blend them to make oranges violets and greens, even blacks. We might thin them to paler colors, or we can darken them. We put those colors to canvas or paper in different shapes and styles of painting. In our painting of Life we use these all together to make a masterpiece. The skill is to know which colors to use in what balance to achieve this painting, which is as unique as the individual.
That is what I try to accomplish every week. By the time I’m done writing these words every week, I take a dab of the scholarly Halakic mind immersed in a variety of classical texts and blend with some Aggadah. With those ranges of colors I paint over a glaze of Everyday Torah, then highlight again with parable from more everyday Torah. In the end I come up with a picture, one that defines me and my world. Often I’ve been told how personal my Midrash is. Actually everyone’s Midrash is, I’m just a bit more obvious about that. Rashi, Maimonides, and Judah HaNasi put their personalities and biographies into their works as much as I have, it’s just we rarely look for their hidden bios since they lived so far in the past. Torah has been called the blueprint of the Universe. The Ten Commandments this week are the abstract of that blueprint. Shlomo’s Drash is my dynamic blueprint of Shlomo’s World. Hopefully this week’s column is also my abstract of what I want to do – Live Torah fully.
Let me end with an invitation, which really is what Shlomo's Drash is, though an invitation rarely accepted to my knowledge. I invite everyone to write Midrash of the everyday, to see all the relationships we have with God and express them to others. Do this not to change other’s opinions as much as to report what one’s own unique perception brings to the Torah of the everyday. We each make a painting, Let us build an art gallery together.
Blessings and Midrash to all.
